Philadelphia Film Festival

Parade , a subtly subversive, funny, and heartbreaking parable about modern alienation by veteran Japanese director Isao Yukisada, opens with a discussion of how inauthentic people experience time. A fun discussion, at that. Part Søren Kierkegaard, part Friends , Parade is a keen dissection of the relationships among four hip, attractive twentysomethings - two boys and two girls - who've been thrown together as flatmates. Out of sync with coworkers, lovers, and one another, the four - an unemployed actress hoping to ride the coattails of her famous beau, an apathetic student, an illustrator flirting with alcoholism, and an office drone - are poster children for Jean-Paul Sartre's hell.

Philadelphians have long been accused of having an inferiority complex when it comes to our city, wedged as it is between those other metropoli, New York and Washington, which, it must be said, occasionally eclipse us. But there's no need to fret when it comes to film festivals: The Philadelphia Film Festival, now in its 17th year, can hold its own as one of the largest on the East Coast. The festival, which will nourish between 65,000 and 70,000 aesthetically ravenous cineasts with a total of 243 feature films and 108 shorts over the next 12 days, has also become one of the best, says artistic director Ray Murray.

In Blue Valentine , which gets its gala screening Friday at the Philadelphia Film Festival, the sad-sack marrieds played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams check into a cheesy themed motel, trying to spark their love life. They're in the "Future Room. " Now in its 19th year, and moved over from its traditional spring slot, PFF - which began Thursday with the amazing Natalie Portman psycho-thriller Black Swan and ends a week from Sunday with a one-day 25-feature marathon - is, in a way, like that motel: It has 114 rooms, each offering a different experience for the folks checking in. And sure, there's cheesiness and there's sex, but also rooms that promise deep emotional experiences, rooms set in exotic foreign lands, rooms behind bars (there are at least three prison movies)

Before Philly became such a film mecca - well before we had Cinefest, QFest, the Independent Film fest, the Terror Film fest, or the Philadelphia Film Festival - there was the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, which will launch its 30th season Saturday with the music documentary The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground at the Gershman Y in Center City. "When we started, I don't think there was another film festival in Philly," PJFF chair and cofounder Judith K. Golden says with some pride.

Philadelphians have long been accused of having an inferiority complex when it comes to our city, wedged as it is between those other metropoli, New York and Washington, which, it must be said, occasionally eclipse us. But there's no need to fret when it comes to film festivals: The Philadelphia Film Festival, now in its 17th year, can hold its own as one of the largest on the East Coast. The festival, which will nourish between 65,000 and 70,000 aesthetically ravenous cineasts with a total of 243 feature films and 108 shorts over the next 12 days, has also become one of the best, says artistic director Ray Murray.

Academy Award nominee and world-famous animator Bill Plympton will be in Philadelphia this weekend for the International Animation Festival, part of the Philadelphia Film Festival. He will be at the University of the Arts Gershman Hall (Broad and Pine streets) from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, screening work and creating animation. Then, also tomorrow, he'll head over to the Prince Music Theater for a screening of his new feature film, "Hair High," at 3 p.m. On Sunday, he'll sign books at Atomic City Comics on South Street from 3 to 5 p.m. Plympton's illustrations have graced the pages of the New York Times, Vogue, House Beautiful, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Screw and Vanity Fair.

Bearing a child takes a mere nine months. Giving birth to a film usually takes a bit longer. When the film is the story of your struggle to get to know your dead father, the process requires the better part of a lifetime. Filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn, 40, began shooting interviews for a documentary about the great Philadelphia architect Louis I. Kahn nearly four years ago. But the images and ideas for My Architect: A Son's Journey, shown tomorrow and April 13 at the Philadelphia Film Festival, which opens tonight, had been percolating in his brain since he was able to wonder about his unusual family circumstances.

Festival? Immersion is more like it. The 14th annual Philadelphia Film Festival is an ocean of movies touching six continents. From last night's opener, Ferpect Crime, a Spanish comedy, to the April 20 closer, Music From the Inside Out, a celebration of Philadelphia Orchestra players, there are 134 features in all. This year's PFF boasts stat power and star power, with actors Malcolm McDowell and Steve Buscemi on hand to receive artistic achievement...

First there was a film festival, then there was no film festival, and now there is again, kind of. In other words, Philadelphia's ongoing saga of "As the Film Festival Turns" has taken a happy spin. Organizers of the Phildelphia Film Festival, planned for the fall, say they will offer an abbreviated, three-day, free festival in the spring - stepping in after another festival, CineFest, said last month that budget constraints obliged it to cancel its international film festival in April.

OK, let's try this one on for size: Philadelphia Film Festival/CineFest. The litigious dispute and internal bickering that had promised to throw Philadelphia film festivalgoers into a state of uncertainty - with the potential of dueling festivals hitting the city - have been put aside. Peace has been reached between the TLA Entertainment Group, organizer of the annual spring festival since 2001, and the Philadelphia Film Society, the nonprofit group that owns the "Philadelphia Film Festival" brand and had made noise about mounting its own festival in the fall.

Many a demographic is super-served throughout the year on the Philadelphia film festival calendar. Cineastes with particular interests are catered to by the Latin American, Jewish, Terror, Gay & Lesbian, Science, Asian American and Animation film festivals, among others, not to mention the overarching Philadelphia Film Festival, which will take place in October this year. Add another group of movie buffs to the list: music fans. Starting this week, the inaugural XPN Music Film Festival will take place in University City, with 20 movies screening, mostly at the Annenberg Center on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

WXPN, the area's preeminent alternative radio station, and the Philadelphia Film Society, producers of the annual Philadelphia Film Festival, are partnering for the XPN Music Film Festival, April 26-29, with most programs playing at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The movie titles in the Music Film Fest, a kind of expanded spin-off of the PFF's "Sight and Soundtrack" program, are being programmed by the PFF's Michael Lerman. Although opening- and closing-night titles have yet to be announced, the early lineup offers an eclectic mix of rock docs, fiction films, concert flicks, and a feature about Gustav Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony.

EACH TIME Susan Sarandon starts a new job, she's terrified. "Every single film is a new universe with a new language," Sarandon said. The universe of her newest film, "Jeff Who Lives at Home," opening this weekend at area theaters, is one that the titular Jeff (Jason Segel) believes is ruled by fate. Jeff is an affable stoner who has trapped himself in his mother's care, waiting until the universe presents a big plan for him. His counterpart is his caustic brother, Pat (Ed Helms)

Giving Toy 2011. A festive evening of food, music, cocktails, and giving is planned Saturday evening to assist the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund. Al Besse, Scott Evers, and celebrity guest David Evangelista will attend the event that benefits Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's pediatric HIV/AIDS unit and ActionAIDS. The fund is a community foundation supporting the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and straight-allied communities throughout the Delaware Valley.

EVERY FEW years a young British actress works her way into "It Girl" territory. A few years ago it was Carey Mulligan after her star turn in "An Education," and now it's Felicity Jones, who's turning heads and winning awards for her lead role opposite Anton Yelchin as a lovestruck British exchange student in Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy," which wowed audiences at Sundance and Toronto and this weekend expands to a limited local run. Jones...

A World War II thriller, a love triangle set against the backdrop of 1960s Poland, an Anthony Hopkins-narrated documentary about controversial Las Vegas newspaperman Hank Greenspun, a South American coming-of-age saga, docs and shorts and narrative features - all are part of the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, which begins this weekend with a characteristically strong lineup of films exploring diverse facets of Jewish culture and history. Between now and May, 22 films from a dozen countries are set for screenings in Center City and surrounding environs.

Way back in another millennium - 1992, to be exact - a cineaste by the name of Linda Blackaby, with support from International House, launched the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema. There were growing pains over the years - new organizers and artistic directors (exit Blackaby), and then a name change, but the good news is that Philadelphians have been blessed with an ambitious, adventurous film festival for 20 years now. Philadelphia Film Festival 20 - a seriously inspired two-week affair that started Thursday night with Like Crazy , the roller-coaster love story with a star-making turn from Felicity Jones - celebrates the festival's traditions, and looks to its future, too. Andrew Greenblatt, PFF's executive director, invited Blackaby back to coprogram and lead discussions on a documentary slate.

RYAN HOWARD walked with crutches as he shopped at Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting yesterday, with his fiancee , Krystle Campbell. Howard, who tore his Achilles tendon during Friday's elimination game against the Cardinals, was wearing an old-school maroon Phillies warm-up suit and a brace or cast on his leg. On our blog, PhillyGossip.com, is a photo believed to be Howard riding a motorized scooter at the same Whole Foods. Film fest luminaria Filmmakers Jonathan Demme , Peter Berg and Alexander Payne , and boxing greats Joe Frazier and Larry Holmes are all guests at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Oct. 20 to Nov. 3. Payne's "The Descendants" is the closing-night film.

Like Crazy, a "captivating" romance between an American and his English girlfriend who runs afoul of immigration authorities, will open the 20th annual Philadelphia Film Festival on Oct. 20, J. Andrew Greenblatt, PFF executive director, announced Saturday. The 15-day, 120-movie cinextravaganza closes with The Descendants, Alexander Payne's sharp dramedy starring George Clooney as a father who reconnects with his estranged children. (Although the festival officially ends Nov. 3, its closing night gala is Oct. 29.)

Film producer Derek Curl and investors have bought a 75 percent interest in TLA Releasing, the DVD distribution arm of TLA Entertainment, Philly's homegrown home entertainment and film festival purveyors, the company announced Tuesday. Curl also will control the company's catalog of more than 200 titles. Curl, whose producing credits include Stake Land , Hatchet II , and The House of the Devil , has been acquisitions director at TLA Releasing since 2009. TLA cofounders Ray Murray and Claire Brown Kohler will control TLA's other properties, including its TLA Video home entertainment websites, catalogs and its two remaining video stores, in Center City and Bryn Mawr.